Ducks

ANAHEIM >> Thirteen goals allowed in two games would do more than raise red flags. Try alarm bells sounding. The Ducks have done just that and while a 6-5 comeback win in a shootout over Carolina on Wednesday left them with some good feelings about finishing off a rare rally, their recent defensive work isn’t anything to be proud about.

ANAHEIM >> Logan Shaw’s first goal with the Ducks came toward the end of an 8-3 rout that will sit comfortably among their worst performances of a long season. Chances are that goal on Sunday in Calgary might only be memorable to him.

ANAHEIM >> Everyone seems to be contributing offensively for the Ducks more than the two you most expect. And then it happened for one of them when they absolutely needed it. Corey Perry fired a one-time shot past Carolina goalie Cam Ward and a game that seemed lost was shockingly tied.

ANAHEIM >> No team had finished with the NHL’s top power play and penalty kill for 21 years until they did it last season so expecting the Ducks to duplicate that a year later is an unreasonable request.

CALGARY, Alberta — The first one that got by him was a shot Jonathan Bernier otherwise stops nine times out of 10. Sure, it was Johnny Gaudreau who fired the shot and it was the first game back from injury for Calgary’s star winger, so Scotiabank Saddledome was particularly lit up at that moment.

CALGARY, Alberta >> At some point, it had to end. All streaks eventually do. The Ducks still have their Honda Center streak over the Calgary Flames rolling, it now at 24 games. But they also hadn’t lost to them at all since Game 3 of the 2015 Western Conference semifinals.

CALGARY, Alberta >> Morning skates once were never part of hockey. Scotty Bowman would make it part of the sport’s lexicon as the legendary coach had his Montreal Canadiens doing drills on the game days.

EDMONTON, Alberta >> Bruce Boudreau and the Ducks reconnected in a small way on Saturday as the former Ducks coach and his Minnesota Wild were at Rogers Place to practice and prepare for their game against the Oilers on Sunday.

EDMONTON, Alberta >> Before it went through several name changes to satisfy its corporate investors, Edmonton’s main home for hockey was called Northlands Coliseum and it was home for a time to a dynasty.

Ondrej Kase scored his first NHL goal, John Gibson made 27 saves and the Ducks beat the Vancouver Canucks 3-1 on Thursday night. Jakob Silfverberg and Andrew Cogliano also scored for Anaheim (12-8-4), which has won three in a row.

ANAHEIM >> A look at their next three games is all the Ducks need to pay full attention. Motivational speeches won’t be required. The Ducks fit in a tidy practice at Honda Center before leaving for western Canada and an accompanying swing through Pacific Division foes.

ANAHEIM >> Rickard Rakell and Cam Fowler scored goals and John Gibson made 39 saves to outduel Montreal’s Carey Price as the Ducks won their second straight, beating the Canadiens 2-0 on Tuesday night.

ANAHEIM >> Emerging from a collision with San Jose goaltender Martin Jones, Ryan Garbutt only knew that he got a shot off. Otherwise, the winger was waiting and waiting like the rest of his Ducks teammates, the Sharks and everyone else in an increasingly impatient arena.

ANAHEIM >> Jonathan Bernier has given the Ducks good goaltending in his starts and the team, in turn, has been supporting him with enough offense that he’s won in four of his last five times he has had the net.

SAN JOSE >> In a forgettable week that’s been either causal actions of their own doing or forces beyond their control, the Ducks finally got things to go their way and salvaged it with an important Pacific Division win.

SAN JOSE >> The makeup of forward lines can change on a coach’s whim but the Ducks have learned that Randy Carlyle is much more willing to keep his top units together with the thought that chemistry between the threesomes will be easier to attain.

ANAHEIM >> Push aside the fact that Black Friday for the Ducks has not been a good Friday for a while or that it is the Chicago Blackhawks that have made it so. In this one, the Ducks saw the place they need to get to as a team.

ANAHEIM >> Their games have been lacking and glaringly so, Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry obvious these days only in that they continue to blend in. Friday, the decorated duo was shut out again as the Ducks fell behind again to a short-handed opponent again before furiously rebounding again only to come up empty.

ANAHEIM >> Being at home on the Thanksgiving holiday leaves the Ducks feeling full but sickness has come to follow the day after. A two decade-old franchise can use traditions and one for the Ducks has become hosting a rare matinee game on what millions now call Black Friday.

Pop quiz, hotshot. You are representing a billion-dollar franchise to an entire generation. You have mere seconds to craft 140 characters for millions of people awaiting your proclamation, and they better form something captivating.

ANAHEIM >> Corey Perry ultimately arrives at the same place regardless of how he starts his seasons, so it figures that the Ducks winger can be left alone to get himself out of the current goal drought he is in.

ANAHEIM >> Popular belief might have it that whenever the Kings and Ducks intersect in the long NHL schedule, it is a bruising, drag-it-out contest destined to need more than 60 minutes of regulation to decide who wins.

ANAHEIM >> In his first season with Randy Carlyle as his coach, Rickard Rakell is finding his usage in the Ducks’ lineup is a two-pronged approach. Want to deepen your lineup? Have the skilled forward on the third line to team with another in veteran Antoine Vermette.

ANAHEIM >> Chris Wagner lives his NHL life on the edge of the roster and it doesn’t get any easier the longer the forward stays there. Two days after being put on waivers by the Ducks, Wagner suddenly found himself back in their lineup Thursday night as the Ducks hosted New Jersey at Honda Center.

ANAHEIM >> A proud defensive-minded shutdown center by trade, Ryan Kesler is relishing his resurgence as a goal scorer. His hot streak continued Thursday night and the New Jersey Devils were left feeling burned.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. >> James Neal scored twice and Pekka Rinne stopped 27 shots for his 41st career shutout in the Nashville Predators’ 5-0 win over the Ducks on Saturday night. Ryan Ellis, Colton Sissons and Filip Forsberg also scored for the Predators, who won their third straight and improved to 4-0-2 in their last six.

Even with his first 20-goal season finally on his resumé, Jakob Silfverberg wanted to write a new narrative for this one. In his last two seasons, Silfverberg would still be looking for his first goal.

RALEIGH, N.C. >> Jakob Silfverberg scored two second-period goals and added two assists as the Ducks beat the Carolina Hurricanes 4-2 on Thursday night. Ryan Kesler also had two goals for Anaheim, including an empty-netter with 26 seconds left.

Hampus Lindholm knows there is a high standard when it comes to what a top Swedish player on the Ducks does in his first game after a long layoff. Is there pressure on him to come up with a three-point game in his season debut as did Rickard Rakell, his good friend and former roommate? “No,” Lindholm said, after an initial chuckle.

It has taken longer than anyone could have expected, but the Ducks could soon have the services of Hampus Lindholm. Lindholm has secured his work visa and was traveling Monday, with the talented defenseman expected to meet up with the Ducks for their practice Tuesday in Columbus, Ohio, as they’re set to start a three-game trip.

ANAHEIM >> Twenty-four and counting. The Ducks have one of the more remarkable streaks going in NHL history, and it was extended Sunday night as second-period goals by Ryan Kesler and Andrew Cogliano lifted them to 4-1 win over the Calgary Flames, whose run of futility at Honda Center is now at 24 consecutive regular-season losses.

ANAHEIM >> With a healthy swing of his stick and an emphatic fist pump, Antoine Vermette let one team know there is still plenty of hockey left in his aging legs. A few teams were actually looking to secure his services in August but one that definitely didn’t was the Arizona Coyotes, who ushered the 34-year-old out with a buyout of his contract.

ANAHEIM >> Challenge accepted. Irritated by consecutive bad losses at home, Ducks coach Randy Carlyle held a meeting Thursday and implored his group to be more focused and play as a unit. The message was received in a 5-1 spanking of the Arizona Coyotes at Honda Center on Friday night.

ANAHEIM >> High jersey numbers often fall into two categories for NHL players. The superstars, the generational talents get them if they want them. Sidney Crosby gets 87 on his first day. Connor McDavid can have 97.

ANAHEIM >> The way the Ducks have swung the pendulum with their performances over the last four games, it stands to think that they will come back with a rousing win over Arizona when they host the Coyotes on Friday night.

ANAHEIM >> Moving their American Hockey League affiliate from Norfolk, Virginia to San Diego is giving the Ducks the kind of proximity they’ve long desired when it came to the access of players in time of need.

LOS ANGELES >> Hampus Lindholm is coming soon and Cam Fowler isn’t going anywhere. At least he’s not going anytime soon. Outside of a coaching staff that’ll be eager to work Lindholm into the mix, Fowler may be the most relieved of the Ducks after his teammate’s contract saga has come to completion.

LOS ANGELES >> There were only a handful of seconds remaining in a scoreless first period when Ducks center Ryan Kesler drifted into the left circle to battle Kings counterpart Nic Down for a faceoff in the attacking zone Tuesday at Staples Center.

LOS ANGELES >> Nobody’s perfect in hockey, short of the guy driving the Zamboni. He’s the only one who never loses, a snowy sheet of ice no match for a piece of industrial-grade resurfacing equipment that can — Bonus! — double as a mass producer of Slurpees.

ANAHEIM >> Witnesses to their last two games saw what is possible from the Ducks over the next six months – and why their inconsistency defined the first one. A 6-1 wipe out of a usually tough Nashville team ran the Ducks’ unbeaten streak to four games and offered hope that a team with annual high expectations was rounding itself into form.

ANAHEIM >> Nick Ritchie has begun this season skating with Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry because, after all, who hasn’t? There have been big ones (Dustin Penner), short ones (Chris Kunitz), young ones (Kyle Palmieri) and old ones (Dany Heatley).

ANAHEIM >> You count on Andrew Cogliano to be there every single day. You don’t count on the NHL’s current iron man to be an offensive maestro. As it stood Friday entering a home game against Columbus, the Ducks’ resident speedster sat tied with Corey Perry for the team goal scoring lead with four.

ANAHEIM >> Before one can believe in the best side that was revealed against last spring’s playoff nemesis, the Ducks showed what the flip side looks like. It was downright ugly. A complete reversal occurred Friday night at Honda Center.

ANAHEIM >> After their first four games, the Ducks had secured only a single point in the standings, a still freshly baked season suddenly feeling strangely stale. There they were, back under the direction of coach Randy Carlyle, the redo starting out like just another disappointing sequel, similar to Blues Brothers 2000, right down to the fact nobody was laughing.

ANAHEIM >> Bob Murray has had his share of tough contract negotiations to retain his top players, but the Ducks general manager never had anything as protracted as the process to sign defenseman Hampus Lindholm.